Finally Moved but greeted with this...

Finally Moved but greeted with this...

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Discussion

Miguel Alvarez

4,944 posts

169 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Gutted. I kind of lucked out when we moved into our place. Got a loft ladder, loads of paint for the various rooms, a spare door and a tonne of stuff like paint brushes and white spirit.

Sorry to thread jack. What is the general consensus on this? I found some of the stuff useful and would consider leaving stuff for the next person that I'd consider helpful. Left over bits of carpet (assuming the original was in good condition). Floor tiles, paint for the walls etc etc.


Venom

1,853 posts

258 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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I agree that leaving that amount of sh*te around in a house when you move out is out of order. Not quite sure I agree with some of the comments posted on here though about vendors taking light fittings and curtains though.

Given how expensive light fittings cost, and how much the bespoke items come down to taste, so long as they leave working replacements, what's the problem?

When we moved out we gave the purchasers the choice of paying for those items as extras, or otherwise advising that we would arrange for the standard items that were in the house when we moved in to be reinstated. Similarly, we were quite happy to agree figures for items that the sellers of the house we were buying were willing to offer to include as extras in the sale.

The way I see it, both parties then have the choice - pay less and don't inherit items they don't want anyway, or pay a little more, but less than cost of buying new, and get items that you do want, without the hassle of having to pay for and fit them yourself.

There seem to be a lot of precious people out there when it comes to house purchases. It's perfectly reasonable to expect the house to be clean and tidy, and the fabric to be as inspected. Beyond that, you're not buying someone else's stuff, just their house, unless you specifically agree otherwise.

league67

1,878 posts

202 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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The first thing that we did was to remove all leftovers. (We are probably a bit extreme as we are removing all the floorboards and replacing them with new ones). I'm just puzzled of why would someone take time to remove mirrors, not that we are going to need them.

Bill

52,485 posts

254 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Miguel Alvarez said:
Gutted. I kind of lucked out when we moved into our place. Got a loft ladder, loads of paint for the various rooms, a spare door and a tonne of stuff like paint brushes and white spirit.

Sorry to thread jack. What is the general consensus on this? I found some of the stuff useful and would consider leaving stuff for the next person that I'd consider helpful. Left over bits of carpet (assuming the original was in good condition). Floor tiles, paint for the walls etc etc.
We asked the buyers. They bought the curtain poles and curtains, plus light fittings and we left them spare paint and carpet. We also offered to make good holes where we did remove stuff but were turned down.

NorthDave

2,355 posts

231 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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When I bought my house the owners hadn't cleaned anywhere (including the toilet complete with skid marks), left holes everywhere in the walls and also removed strategically placed rugs to reveal burns in the carpets. They also handed me the keys at 6pm after getting the money at lunch time.

What was worse was that they moved literally next door so I share a boundary with them now. Bizarre!

Bluebarge

4,519 posts

177 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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I know moving is a stressful process, but I can't help thinking you're getting a bit too worked up over a few bits of scrap metal and a load of free manure. I'd be a bit more concerned about the fact that your garage appears to have foliage coming through the roof as well as assorted bits of wood/metal poking through, but that should be on the survey.

If you don't need any of that crap, just stick it behind the garage until you have time to move it. These are fairly minor irritations in the grand scheme of things, so just crack open a beer and enjoy the positive bits of your new gaff.

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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I dunno, eh, if they'd taken the light fittings and door handles you'd have complained. They can't win.

FiF

43,965 posts

250 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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People are quite bizarre when they move out. If you sell your car do you leave it full of old cans, takeaway coffee cups assorted stuff that was supposed to go to the tip discarded knickers and a few bogies. So why do people do this in houses.

We were reasonably fortunate when we moved in twelve years ago that most of the crap had gone. The most bizarre thing we found was an old .22 rifle. Appeared to be in working order too though in need of a strip down and thorough clean. Made safe and delivered to the nick after a phone call. Not wise to just rock up unannounced I thought.

ARH

1,222 posts

238 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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I was lucky then when I moved, the house needed a complete refurb but the previous owner was great, he asked if we needed old wardrobes to tide us over till we could buy new ones. he had no need for them and we needed some so he left them. He even left an old kettle, some teabags and milk so we could have a brew when we got there. Mind you when clearing the garden we did find a lot of rubbish under the bushes, and a couple of old bird baths which we let him know about and he came to collect them. He popped round a couple of days later as well to check we were OK with everything. A very nice man. But we did spend a few hours getting to know him during the purchase which I guess helped a lot.

Steve57

Original Poster:

2,159 posts

241 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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All i want is the garage so i can store the radical temp until this one is knocked down wink i knew it wasnt in the best of shape when we put the offer in. What i didnt want was to have to clear all his junk that he clearly didnt want before i could do that. that will be an extra week or two's storage costs before i can clear it now then.

Guess we were expecting too much for him to remove the old junk before he moved, just like we did (not much TBH) but we did clean top to bottom once the removal guys were finished, also swept the old garage out for the new owner. Oh and removed all our rubbish at the end, unlike Mr Roberts, 3 bags of recycling, two bags general waste,a bin of empty bottles and a food waste thats full. Oh well, either a skip or a trailer load to deal with, and a few £££'s for my trouble, that should keep me happy biggrin Then once the radical is back i can finally get a track day in. The world will be much better after that.

MuffDaddy

1,414 posts

204 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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When we moved the garden was so over grown that we found a garage and a air raid shelter. I kid you not.

Steve57

Original Poster:

2,159 posts

241 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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while i think of it, anyone in essex want 7/8 fish from the pond? wink thats going too. just goldfish type im guessing.

pincher

8,497 posts

216 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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With any luck, they will be Koi and worth about a grand each smile

prand

5,910 posts

195 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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MuffDaddy said:
When we moved the garden was so over grown that we found a garage and a air raid shelter. I kid you not.
That's the second time today I have been reminded about the PHer with the german bunker in his garden. Wonder what ever happened with that...

OP this is bad, so my sumpathies, but in my experience, the crappiness is often outweighed hy the feeling when everything is finally in and you can sit down in the garden with a cuppa, and survey your new manor thinking 'all mine!' and the fun you're going to have there.

FailHere

779 posts

151 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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On my last move I was lucky; the new house was a developer's part-ex property so was completely empty and newly carpeted. The kitchen has all built in appliances so by agreement with the purchaser of my old house I left them the cooker, fridge-freezer, washer/dryer, microwave and kettle (plus tea-bags and mugs, with milk and a bottle of fizz in the fridge for them). It saved me moving things I didn't want or need and having to get rid of them. It was a downsize and despite getting rid of three rooms worth of furniture I still ended up having to put stuff in the garage until I could get rid.

My worst move was a do it myself job on a Friday, with a couple of mates helping; completion was late on the old house which meant it was even later on the new one. En-route between the two I had a phone-call from the Solicitor saying there was a problem redeeming the old mortgage (dispute over the penalty for early redemption) As I had all my worldly goods in a 7.5 ton van and needed the money for the new house I told them to do whatever they had to to sort it out. They did, but this delayed completion even further so I didn't get the keys until late afternoon. Opened the door to find the house still full of all the previous contents, everything, beds, sofas, desks, wardrobes, tables chairs, fridge, cooker. It had been let previously and I subsequently discovered that the absentee landlord had paid someone to clear the house, but, they hadn't done it. This was no help to me at the time, ended up stacking all the existing contents in a few rooms so I could get my stuff off the van and in; which took so long that I had to pay more for the hired truck as I couldn't get it back that day.
Financially it all worked out in the end, especially as I was given a sum to dispose of the contents and managed to sell some, give some away and dump the rest. Oh I forgot to mention that there was no electric or gas as I had not spotted the pre-pay card meters which had run out; I did manage to get someone out to get the electric working that night, but not the gas, so no hot water 'til the following Monday

FiF

43,965 posts

250 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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On the issue of moving day trials.

On the day we moved out of our place in the move referenced above the removal outfit turned up with 6 bods two vans as it was all going into containers for storage for a couple of weeks.

Ten o clock in the morning the gaffer turned up and apologised as he was going to nick one of the vans and four of the guys as they'd turned up to another job to find that the customer had just upped and left.

Basically beds just unstripped just left as they'd crawled out that morning, dirty washing strewn about near laundry bins, breakfast dishes just left on the table.

Hope they got charged a mint for that.

ColinM50

2,630 posts

174 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Aunt and uncle had a similar problem with a bungalow they bought 15 or so years ago. Owners had died and the bungalow was being sold by son and heir. When they took it over the vendor hadn't moved a thing out, left everything where the old couple had left it, furniture, clothes, bedding, kitchen stuff, even the fridge was full of mouldy food, so poor aunt and uncle had to pay to get the house cleared out and the vendor didn't want to know. When they asked him to pay the cleaners bill he just ignored them.

Except about six months later he knocked on the door and said his dad had left some "family mementoes" in the conservatory and could he come in and get them back please? Of course uncle said "on your bike mate, you didn't want to know when we moved in and had all the crap to deal with, so no chance". Chappie stood there and said "yea, sorry about that, I'll give you £500 to put things right between us and I'll just come in and get my dad's stuff" and started to push his way in. Uncle pushed him back and told him to eff off and shut the door in his face. smokin

After a bit of shouting and swearing demanding his Dad's "stuff" back, chappie eventually disappeared. So of course A&U then went searching in the old wooden conservatory and on top of a joist behind some false panelling they found a load of Kruggerands worth about £20k.

Chappie's solicitor wrote to them demanding that they let chappie have his family mementoes back but of course A&U knew nothing at all about any mementos. evil


Neil - YVM

1,310 posts

198 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Steve, stop bhing. Just get a skip and give Lin a set of marigolds, it'll give her something to do to clear it up for you. ;-)

Sid's Dad

576 posts

140 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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ColinM50 said:
Aunt and uncle had a similar problem with a bungalow they bought 15 or so years ago. Owners had died and the bungalow was being sold by son and heir. When they took it over the vendor hadn't moved a thing out, left everything where the old couple had left it, furniture, clothes, bedding, kitchen stuff, even the fridge was full of mouldy food, so poor aunt and uncle had to pay to get the house cleared out and the vendor didn't want to know. When they asked him to pay the cleaners bill he just ignored them.

Except about six months later he knocked on the door and said his dad had left some "family mementoes" in the conservatory and could he come in and get them back please? Of course uncle said "on your bike mate, you didn't want to know when we moved in and had all the crap to deal with, so no chance". Chappie stood there and said "yea, sorry about that, I'll give you £500 to put things right between us and I'll just come in and get my dad's stuff" and started to push his way in. Uncle pushed him back and told him to eff off and shut the door in his face. smokin

After a bit of shouting and swearing demanding his Dad's "stuff" back, chappie eventually disappeared. So of course A&U then went searching in the old wooden conservatory and on top of a joist behind some false panelling they found a load of Kruggerands worth about £20k.

Chappie's solicitor wrote to them demanding that they let chappie have his family mementoes back but of course A&U knew nothing at all about any mementos. evil

Great story! Good to see the chappie's bad manners being rewarded! We always make a point of leaving every house we sell absolutely immaculate. Apart from spare wallpaper and paint for any repairs. And so far every house we have bought has been spotless too...

richtea78

5,574 posts

157 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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My uncle is a builder. He once had to install a staircase where someone had chopped the old one out of a house

I got a load of 70s porn mags left in my loft. Previous owner was a woman who claimed to have never been up there.